"The previous two cases did not survive and the vast majority of people who contract rabies overseas die, unfortunately.

"We're not sure of the circumstances because the child is now too sick to tell us."

It is the third confirmed case of Australian bat lyssavirus in Australia. All three have been in Queensland.

Queensland bat handler Patricia Padget, 39, became the world's first victim of the lyssavirus on November 15, 1996.

The Rockhampton woman, a mother of four, died of encephalitis (brain inflammation) after she was scratched by a bat she was caring for.

The virus can have an incubation period of two years or more.

Mother-of-two Monique Todhunter, the second known victim died in 1998.

Ms Todhunter had reportedly been bitten while protecting a child from an attacking bat at a backyard barbecue in Mackay.

Latest figures show 10 out of 18 applications for lethal Damage Mitigation Permits to shoot flying foxes have been approved - for a total quota of 10,850 bats - on farms from Cairns in the north to Somerset region in the south.

Worldwide there are about 55,000 cases of rabies each year, with six known survivors.

Though human cases of bat-borne lyssavirus are "extremely rare," Dr Young warned it should be "assumed any bat could potentially carry the disease" and the time period before symptoms appeared "varies enormously".

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